


momentum

by molgera (orphan_account)



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3485663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/molgera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not like he planned on falling in love with his best friend—hell, he’d have done anything to stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	momentum

Of all the people Arin Hanson could have fallen in love with, it had to be Dan fucking Avidan.

Well, it didn’t _have_ to be, but it was, and he was so completely and utterly fucked.

He ventures that he’s been in love for a long time, it’s just that he hasn’t realized it until now. He tries very hard to think of when it started—perhaps it was the day they met, even—Arin smiling crookedly at him over plate upon plate of sushi. Or maybe the night when both of them were too tired to move after spending hours playing video games, where Dan leaned his head onto Arin’s shoulder and promptly fell asleep, and Arin could do anything but.

It’s not like he planned on falling in love with his best friend—hell, he’d have done anything to stop it.

It’s a Tuesday when it happens, though there’s nothing special about this particular Tuesday aside from the fact that it happens to be the one on which something _finally_ happens to set everything into motion.

They’ve stopped playing games for a while to take a lunch break, except they’re eating in silence and Arin is staring pointedly forward, his eyes glazed over. Dan notices that lately he’s taken to spacing out a lot whenever they’re not recording. Dan sets his cup of tea on the table and turns to face Arin.

“What’s up man?”

“Nothing, why?”

“No, I mean like, what’s up with you? You’re not yourself lately and I’m getting worried.” Dan furrows his brow.

“Do you really not know?”

“No?” Arin can tell Dan genuinely doesn’t, and not wanting to spoil anything he tries to backtrack like it never happened.

“Then never mind, let’s get back to recording.”

“No way, man, you can’t just say something like that and expect me to let it slide, seriously, what the fuck is up with you?”

“What the fuck is up with me? Can you really not tell?”

Arin breaks because he’s too old for this, and Dan is too old for this because they’re grown men. He should be able to communicate his feelings better than this but he can’t, because so much is at stake—so much that it’s what’s kept Arin silent all these months, listening to Dan talk about how great the sex he had last night was and all the while Arin smiled and laughed and played along because he didn’t want to fuck things up.

But here he was, waist deep in this already and well on his way to drowning. Arin sounds very small when he finally says it.

“I love you, Dan.”

Dan’s face softens, though there’s nothing telling that gives Arin any indication of what Dan is thinking. Embarrassed and exhausted, he threads his fingers through his hair and buries his face in his hands.

Arin feels like he is being crushed—in fact he's certain that he is. The weight of the entire planet has concentrated itself on him and he’s being crushed and he’s going to die so it doesn’t matter that he just told his best friend that he’s in love with him, because—

“Hey, Arin, look at me.”

Arin looks up and realizes he stopped breathing.

“It’s okay. Just breathe.” Dan rests his hand on Arin’s shoulder tentatively.

Arin wonders how the fuck Dan can be so calm, as if nothing happened. He’s certain any minute now Dan’s going to open his mouth and tell him, “I love you too, but not like that,” or, “You’re my best friend, but I’m straight, Arin.” It could go a million different ways, and all of them end with Arin feeling like he’s been stabbed in the gut.

“I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I?” Arin looks like he’s about to cry and Dan’s heart breaks.

He thinks about how this has been a long road to ruin from the very beginning and braces himself for the final blow, the twist of the knife through his heart.

Except that’s not what happens at all, and when Dan says it Arin has to ask him to repeat himself, because _what the fuck_.

"I think I might love you too, Arin,” he pauses for a moment, and Arin opens his mouth as if to speak, but Dan cuts him off, “and before you say that I’m gonna follow that up with ‘no homo’, hear me out.”

“No, wait. I… you, what?” Arin’s spluttering nonsense because Dan doesn’t love him like that, Dan loves girls, has sex with girls, talks to Arin all the time about how great girls are. Dan can't love him. He’s believed it for so long that it doesn’t make sense to stop now.

Arin tries to think about how much time he’s wasted already when they should be filming episodes, but all he can think of is how much he wishes he could tell Dan everything he feels—that he loves him, but how those three words seem so insufficient, because it’s the way Dan sometimes looks at Arin when they’re recording and Arin turns his head left and finds Dan sitting there with a grin plastered across his face at some stupid joke Arin’s told, or how Arin’s chest feels funny when they’re recording stuff for Starbomb and Dan looks into the recording booth at Arin and it makes his insides practically melt. It’s so fucking stupid, and he feels like he’s in high school all over again, but it’s not some fleeting crush, it’s the most potent thing he’s ever felt.

His heart sinks a little when he realizes that this no longer belongs to him—that the fantasies and the privacy were gone now, because Dan knows, and it feels like he’s lost a vital part of himself.

Dan scoots closer to Arin and he’s finding it increasingly harder to breathe. He wonders how the hell Dan can be so calm about all of this.

“Right, like. I know you well enough to know your head is probably cycling through like, a billion confusing, conflicting thoughts right now, so I’m gonna… try and say this and hope I don’t fuck it up.” Dan takes his hand off of Arin’s shoulder and swallows, looking like he’s about to say something, but he changes his mind midway and leans forward and presses his lips gently against Arin’s. He pulls back with his eyes closed tight, too scared to look at Arin’s expression.

“Sorry, I… I’ve wanted to do that for a while and I wasn’t sure if I should do that and then talk, or talk and then… oh god, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” and Arin, who has been so silent this whole time, reaches forward and grabs a fistful of Dan’s shirt, yanking him forward, crashing their lips together.

“You’re so stupid," and Dan laughs into the kiss and it’s heaven. He runs his hands through Arin’s hair, eventually resting them on the back of his neck and kisses him like he’s starved for it, and Arin’s a little in awe of Dan’s apparent fervor, because he still can’t believe this is actually happening, and that this isn’t some weird fucked up joke.

Dan pulls back and cups Arin’s cheek with his hand, running his thumb over it. “I don’t want to fuck this up.” He kisses Arin again, so softly that Arin wonders if he thinks he’s made of glass. Dan reckons that he’s already fucked up enough for one lifetime.

“You won’t, believe me,” and Arin’s not entirely certain of it, but he figures that very little in life is certain and sometimes you just have to say to hell with it.

The cup of tea on the table has gone cold. Arin distantly worries about what Barry will say when he sees the lack of footage there is to edit.

“This is going to change everything, you know,” Arin says. You can never go back, not really anyhow. Arin isn’t entirely sure he wants to.

“It might, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.”

Arin's heart swells, and Dan’s smiling at him again when he realizes he’s seen Dan smile like this before, late nights when they’d sit around talking and Dan would go on and on about the connection he felt making love with some girl, except this time Dan’s smile was all for him, and as Dan leans in to kiss Arin again, he thinks to himself that different or not, everything is going to be just fine.

 ****  
  



End file.
